Looong time lurker and avid reader of multiple reviews and forum posts!

I had an epiphany the other day. I thought I could live with my modest setup for a long time, but....

A buddy here got his hands on a nice Cimbali m27 and he let me play with it for a while.... I realised that my home setup was still very far from coffee nirvana!

So, I've been looking to get a little closer to heaven.... Don't have an unlimited budget, but to my surprise, when I talked to my wife about spending close to $2000 on a machine, she said.... good idea! So, the quest was on!

Our coffee routine is usually a latte each for breakfast, and I'll make some espresso shots during the day, and whenever I get friends over, I'll make some extra shots or lattes (seems I have developed a following, even with my very basic setup!)

Now, I currently reside in Taiwan, and everything that is a "premium" product gets its regular price doubled. So, a machine that will cost $1,000 in the US, will cost close to $2,000 here. I can import stuff tax free up to $500... after that, they slam us with hefty taxes.

With that in mind, I checked the local market. I saw a Nuova Simonelli Oscar (that usually get great reviews) for a little over $1,500 (if I can get the seller to separate the included Grinta grinder that does not get great reviews!) I've seen the La Scala Butterfly for about $1,650. The Bezzera BZ07 for $1,750.

There was a second hand La Spaziale Vivaldi II Mini that seemed like a monster of a machine for $1,900. I was drooling a bit in front of it! but that would definitely be on the upper hand of the budget, since I also need to get a decent grinder as well.

So.... I'm thinking I could probably be very happy with the Oscar, but the La Spaziale got me drooling with envy. Would the Vivaldi really justify itself by being a major step above the Oscar, or is it blurry enough that I might get away saving a little money going with the Oscar and spend it on some other hobbies!?!

I was getting used to the fact that I might get a new Oscar. But, I've found a couple of La Scala Butterflys second hand that would be an interesting choice... been reading about them and they seem like a nice machine as well.

Just my two cents: I bought an Oscar about two months ago and, while I'm happy with it, I didn't realize that the lack of the hot water spigot meant a non-standard descaling process. Knowing that, I might have upgraded to an E61 machine (like the La Scala Butterfly).

Then again, my last machine was a cheap-o DeLonghi that died not too long after its first descale, so I may just be afraid of hurting my precious Oscar.

At first, since I do not make americanos and I don't need hot water, I felt it wasn't a problem for the Oscar. But your post sent me looking at procedures to descale an Oscar, and Nuova advises NOT descaling the boiler .... until it becomes a problem, then just send the machine back to the shop for a cleaning.

My water in Taiwan is very hard. There is white residue on shower heads, I even got chunks of calcium stuck in aerator faucets (but that was a couple years ago... since then, I guess they've upgraded their water treatment system as I get very few of those lately).

So, the hot water spigot might come in handy when descaling the HX and boiler of the Butterfly.... I have yet to look up how easy it is to take out the boiler in the Butterfly.

I'm also considering using water from a RO system which should help filtering out the extra calcium, I believe.

RO systems completely break down the water to 0-5ppm meaning it's considered distilled. With distilled water you won't EVER get any scale build up although distilled water doesn't taste the greatest. Usually you can set RO machines to a set amount of ppm and from a previous job I worked at selling them 50-80ppm tastes the best and will take a very very long time to build scale up in a machine. Don't let the Oscar scare you. Machines like the Oscar are made of copper and brass meaning they aren't hard to take apart you could simply remove the boiler yourself and clean from time to time by hand. The supplier will do the same thing when you send it off for cleaning.

At the moment, I use a filtration system at home of two 3M canisters (filtering to 0.5micron) and a UV lamp. Seems to do a good job as my current machine doesn't need to be descaled so often. I would have to get the water tested to really know my mineral content after filtration.

The reason I mentioned RO is because there is a street machine selling RO treated water near my house, and I could just get a big jug of that once a while to fill my coffee machine.

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